Monday, June 14, 2010

episode four

Episode 4: Instruction vrs. Information


So recently the guys at the youth center have had a real desire to go geocaching! Geocaching is a GPS related thing to do in which you put in some co-ordinates and try to find a hidden treasure somewhere in a bush, city, town ect. (Actually there is one in Wingham and close to 50 in the surrounding area not more than 20 minutes from Wingham!) So far, we have had two grand adventures involving finding treasure hidden under a ‘dragon’ shaped log, and trudging through swamp, thorns and discouragement to find the geocache. When you find the cache you trade something of yours for something that is already in the cache, following this you can log what you left and took and leave a record of how long it took you to find the cache. Our log during one of the adventures involved 14 guys having to battle 100 plus orc warriors and coming out on top! Crazy i know, but it gives them an adventure to live and story to sacrifice for.

Coming out on top...hmmm... I think I have something to write about this week! (0h and by the way since the last PSOB I now have a fancy laptop and even have just finished a coffee culture coffee, things are good!). For some time now as I have worked with the youth of this community as well as taking some good schooling in teenage development I am starting to learn a thing or two about how students operate. I am convinced that youth today are not being taught using instruction but simply information. We are taught by simply parroting what teachers, leaders and texts books say but not taught how to live and process the given information. Instruction vrs. information, what is the difference? Much of our current society is based around information, its easily accessible and abundant but with more and more information every day, new studies, new statistics why are so many teens failing and falling through the cracks? Reality check for small towns; being a part of an international organization called Youth For Christ we have staff in Toronto who work with homeless youth and are desperate to share that 90 percent of all homeless youth they see come from small towns... The false dream to make it big in the city is what draws youth away. We need to instruct them before they are bombarded with information. Think of information as forming something within. If information happens without instruction there is no house in which the information can actually form in. Instruction (hardship, challenge, work ethic, failure, obedience and correction) is what creates a house in person so inner formations can happen.

Back to geocaching, youth long for adventure and long to feel alive, I and some key volunteers have made it our goal to start working with young guys and try to create an environment in which instruction is given so we can give them information and thus they can get a dream for their lives and follow it! The most important thing we do to see youth succeed is challenge them in real life situations. We talk to them about dating, challenge their motives, provide them with places to serve their community and for us as older volunteers to live by example. I am convinced that challenging, instructing and mentoring youth to live up to higher levels of commitment is the only way to see young people truly have inner formation and have the courage to risk failure achieve a dream and come out on top! When we provide the environments to instruct youth about life and failure we are giving young people the character needed to resource themselves for their future God given dreams! Stronger character equals stronger families. Once again, thanks for the time--this has been episode 4 of PStacO’Bot and the 50 cent Pop saying that you have been created for a purpose!


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